2020 Country Brief: North Korea

There are two essential issues in the US-North Korea relationship: 1. Ending the nuclear threat North Korea poses globally; and 2. curbing the conventional military threat North Korea poses to its neighbors.

North Korea has spent years developing and testing nuclear weapons that threaten the region, including our allies, South Korea and Japan. Now, thanks to advances in its ballistic missile technology, North Korea has a functional nuclear weapon. Tensions between North Korea, the United States, and our allies have increased with the North’s advancement of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The situation is further complicated by the fact that North Korea and South Korea technically remain at war after the Korean War ended only in an armistice. In addition to its nuclear weapons, North Korea has packed enough conventional firepower on its border to destroy the South’s capital, Seoul, in a matter of hours if hostilities ever broke out.³It also has a large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. A war on the Korean Peninsula could lead to the deaths of millions of people on both sides of the border, including possibly hundreds of thousands of Americans.⁴To quell this threat, the United States must negotiate to denuclearize North Korea.

The first meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un was in Singapore on June 12, 2018. This was the first time a sitting American president had ever met with the leader of this reclusive regime. The two discussed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in an effort to negotiate a resolution to the ongoing tension between North Korea and the global community. President Trump and Kim Jong-un signed an agreement after the summit, which contained only four vague commitments:

1. Establish new US-North Korean relations;
2. Build lasting and stable peace on the Korean peninsula;
3. Reaffirm the North Korean commitment toward complete denuclearization; and
4. Recover remains of prisoners of war or those missing in action.⁵

Despite President Trump’s insistence that North Korea is no longer a threat to the United States,⁶North Korea continues to pose a tremendous danger to us and our Asia-Pacific allies through both its nuclear and conventional arsenals.

Negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program continued at the working level with US State Department officials after the June 2018 summit but failed to yield any substantive results. Instead of refusing to capitulate to the North’s demands and call for working-level negotiations to continue between the United States and North Korea, President Trump and Kim Jong-un held a second summit in Hanoi, Vietnam in February 2019. The second summit, similar to the first, was a failure. President Trump’s offer to end American-led sanctions in exchange for complete denuclearization was instantly rebuffed by Kim.⁷Despite the two failed summits, in mid-2019 Trump decided to get a photo-op with Kim at the Demilitarized Zone and became the first sitting US president to enter North Korea.⁸

The inability to strike a deal on sanctions relief for denuclearization ended the talks early. Subsequent working level negotiations in Stockholm, Sweden broke off in September 2019 after North Korea walked away.⁹Although it appears there will be no more summits between Trump and Kim, the United States should insist that any follow-on negotiations between the two countries are smart, tough, and include actionable commitments by the North for complete, verifiable denuclearization.

A smart and tough deal with North Korea includes four key elements.

1. The elimination of North Korea’s inventory of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can deploy a nuclear bomb to parts of the United States.

To deliver a deal that protects America’s interests and allies, the Trump Administration must ensure that any agreement addresses North Korea’s inventory of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). North Korea possesses an arsenal of different vehicles that can deliver a nuclear warhead, including short-, medium-, and long-range ballistic missiles.¹⁰In recent years, it has developed new and longer-range ICBMs that are thought to be able to reach the continental United States.¹¹This means North Korea could conceivably hit parts of the country with a nuclear bomb if it is not stopped.¹²North Korea has also been one of the most prolific exporters of its ballistic missile technology for financial gain, presenting tremendous security concerns about to whom the country has sold—and could sell—this technology.¹³

A smart and tough deal with North Korea would immediately eliminate the country’s ICBM capabilities as this presents a direct threat to the United States. While it was a positive step that North Korea agreed to temporarily suspend its ICBM testing to allow for negotiations,¹⁴the country has since resumed missile tests.¹⁵The United States and its allies, as well as the United Nations, have imposed a series of sanctions on North Korea for both its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But these sanctions have not put a stop to the country’s advancement of these programs, and many countries have failed to comply with the sanctions and avoid business with North Korea.¹⁶Any deal made by the United States must aim to eliminate the threat of North Korea’s ICBMs and address all ranges of its delivery vehicles in order to protect America’s allies.

2. Specific and measurable steps to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

North Korea has a significant stockpile of nuclear material that could be used to make a large number of weapons and cause massive destruction and loss of life to us and our allies. Some US intelligence estimates have indicated that North Korea has enough fissile material for up to 60 nuclear warheads, with up to 20 of these warheads possibly already assembled.¹⁷Of tremendous concern, a 2017 assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly found that North Korea has the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that can actually fit onto an ICBM.¹⁸If true, this would be a significant step toward giving the country the capability to hit parts of the continental United States. Since 2006, the country has also conducted a number of nuclear tests.¹⁹

Any final deal the United States makes with North Korea must focus on laying out specific, measurable steps the country will take to eventually eliminate its arsenal of nuclear warheads, including the massive amount of fissile material it holds. The ultimate end-goal of any negotiated deal should be the complete, verifiable denuclearization of North Korea.

3. A strong inspection and verification regime to prevent more broken promises.

North Korea has a long history of breaking its promises on nuclear deals. North Korea negotiated an Agreed Framework under which the United States agreed to supply North Korea with light water reactors in exchange for freezing its nuclear program.²⁰But the deal fell apart in 2002 when the United States alleged that North Korea restarted its program.²¹In 2003, North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires non-nuclear weapons states to commit to not developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon. In 2009, Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program that involved the United States also broke down after North Korea walked away. More recently, in 2012, North Korea promised to stop enriching uranium and halt new tests while allowing international inspectors to enter the country, in exchange for humanitarian aid. But this promising development quickly fell apart when North Korea conducted a long-range missile test.²²

Today, North Korea attempts to avoid its commitments by playing on differences in definitions with the United States on what denuclearization would mean.²³North Korea threatened to cancel the first summit over US insistence that “unilateral nuclear abandonment” is the starting point for negotiations.²⁴Instead, North Korea wants denuclearization to apply to the entire Korean Peninsula, including the removal of US conventional forces—effectively abandoning our South Korean allies.²⁵Neither summit resolved this fundamental tension.

To combat this untrustworthiness going forward, the United States should trust but verify compliance with all terms regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. This must include an agreement by North Korea to declare the scope of its nuclear program and then establish an extensive architecture to allow international inspectors to verify the scope of the North’s program and regularly inspect that the country is upholding its end of any deal. North Korea has a track record of talking, shaking hands with high-level diplomats, and signing agreements—only to break them. President Trump has already approached negotiations with such eagerness that it puts the United States in a weaker negotiating position going forward. The United States should instead move forward with a renewed focus on measurable denuclearization—including a strong and transparent verification and inspection regime—and not be satisfied with symbolic gestures.

4. Coordination with our allies in the region, particularly South Korea and Japan.

The United States has strong partnerships with South Korea and Japan, which are essential negotiating partners. The United States has signed separate treaties with South Korea and Japan that provide for the mutual defense of our nations. Over 26,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea²⁶and around 55,000 are in Japan²⁷—in part, to deter against North Korean aggression. These service members would bear the greatest American cost of any conflict with North Korea; thus, any security guarantees in these negotiations must be carefully coordinated with our allies.

In the past, North Korea has demanded that the United States withdraw its forces from the Korean Peninsula in exchange for the North ending its nuclear weapons program. If the Trump Administration were to cave to this demand, it could further undermine the United States’ relationship with its allies while strengthening China’s hand in the region. Any negotiations on a change in the US force posture in the region must be coordinated with these allies. In the aftermath of the first nuclear summit, President Trump acceded to North Korean demands to cancel joint US military exercises with South Korea, and he has continued to postpone them in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.²⁸These joint exercises are essential to ensuring American and South Korean troops are prepared for conflict. The United States should not make concessions that weaken our military while the threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program remains unabated. Any further concessions should be reciprocated by similar North Korean steps to reduce tensions.

President Trump gave away more than he gained at the first summit and left with nothing at the second.

The deal signed between President Trump and Kim Jong-un after the June 2018 summit failed to change the status quo. It made vague promises of “denuclearization” in exchange for security guarantees but included no specific or measurable steps to reach that point. The deal failed to offer an agreed-upon definition of denuclearization, which has been a major sticking point in past negotiations. President Trump sacrificed US troop readiness in South Korea without achieving any major concessions from North Korea. He twice gave North Korea legitimacy as a nuclear power on the global stage while trading away key leverage. Still worse, by profusely praising Kim Jong-un and agreeing to meet with him a second time, President Trump made the United States appear desperate for a deal and gave credibility to a brutal dictator.

The Administration’s strategy toward North Korea has been a failure. North Korea has continued to develop its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program since the summit. In November 2018, reports indicated that North Korea was advancing its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases, which would boost its capability to launch nuclear warheads that can reach the United States.²⁹President Trump has publicly voiced his frustration at the lack of progress on denuclearization and even canceled visits by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to North Korea.³⁰Instead of using the second summit as leverage to force North Korea to decide between an economy and nuclear weapons, President Trump came away with nothing. The second summit only served to lend even more legitimacy to North Kora and further demonstrated the Administration’s failed strategy.

While President Trump touts commitments that North Korea has already breached, past presidents were able to obtain specific commitments to halt or roll back particular elements of North Korea’s weapons complex.³¹

The second summit in Hanoi left President Trump with little to show for years of diplomacy and engagement with North Korea. After failing to agree on even the most basic language or steps to denuclearize, President Trump abruptly ended the meeting and Kim’s nuclear program continues to grow. Two years later, there has been little progress, and Kim’s erratic behavior and uncertain health conditions³²make the regime as dangerous as ever. In June 2020, Kim blew up a $15 million liaison office with South Korea and threatened to move troops back into the Demilitarized Zone on the border of South Korea, before deferring on that action.³³Additionally, as highlighted in the “Cybersecurity” chapter of this book, while North Korea has long engaged in state-sponsored malicious cyber activity—largely to skirt US sanctions and steal sensitive information from the United States and other countries’ businesses and government institutions—the US government recently documented that these activities have continued to grow in size and scope over the last few years.³⁴

North Korea’s highly centralized leadership structure further complicates the nuclear issue

Recent events have exposed the highly centralized leadership structure in North Korea that makes the future of the country’s government uncertain. In April 2020, rumors began to surface that Kim Jong-un was in grave danger following a reported surgery.³⁵Kim’s two-week absence during North Korea’s most important holiday forced foreign nations and North Korea analysts to attempt to identify Kim’s successor in the event of the tyrant’s death. Rising to the top of that list was his sister, Kim Yo-jong, and Kim Yong-Chol, a well-known general. While Kim was seen a few weeks after his hiatus, the lack of knowledge surrounding his possible successor—due to the leader’s historic reclusiveness and recent purge of top staff—poses enormous questions about how the United States and international community would respond in order to secure loose nukes in the event of a North Korean leadership crisis. It is for this reason, and many more, that the United States needs leadership capable of delivering a smart and tough agreement with North Korea that reduces the risk of nuclear conflict.

Conclusion

North Korea poses a tremendous threat to the United States and its Asia-Pacific allies. Ultimately, negotiations are the best option to reduce the threat of North Korea and maintain security. But a smart and tough deal with North Korea must include strong and transparent inspections and verification mechanisms to ensure that the North is not able to cheat on any deal, be closely coordinated with US regional allies who provide critical deterrence against North Korean aggression, and eliminate the capability of North Korea to hit the United States with a nuclear bomb. Since signing the 2018 deal with Kim Jong-un and failing at the second meeting Kim requested, President Trump gave away more and got less than any other American president—and the commitments he did receive have already been broken. The next administration should focus on getting a smart and tough deal from North Korea, rather than holding frivolous summits that do not achieve concrete solutions. American national security hangs in the balance.